Influential people, from journalists and entrepreneurs to investors and developers are idea-generators shaping the ideas we drool over and discuss et infinitum. But who are these people leading the charge? How did they come to be, and rise above the rest to gather a following?
Sites like Twitter and Facebook are now testing grounds for quantifying the world’s leaders. But do we understand what influence means and what variables are really at play? We all know that a follower count means nothing, but what does a RT mean? Or better yet, what does an @reply by Scoble mean vs. one from Arrington? Beneath the surface is where the science gets really interesting.
In this panel you’ll hear from the experts who are distilling influence down to it’s basic components. They’ll explain tips for increasing influence, which variables really matter and the types of influence they are discovering across the web.
With a growing number of marketing activities taking place online today, the search is on to find the best way to market to online consumers. In this panel, we’ll discuss how influencer marketing may just be the ticket everyone has been waiting for and how best to use it.
Influences are at the top of the knowledge dissemination pyramid. Look at “RT @guykawasaki” and you immediately get a sense of the power influencers have to spread information. They have a unique ability to surface interesting information and package it in a way that makes people want to click-through and act, whether through purchasing or retweeting.
The idea behind influencer marketing is that it centers around identifying influencers, marketing to them and then marketing through them to reach the consumers whose attention they hold captive. With this tactic comes issues, like how do you identify top influencers in things like traveling, fashion or even cupcakes? It’s no easy task.
Computational algorithms and semantic analysis however have progressed to the point where technology can now allow us to locate influencers in any topic in the world. In this panel, you’ll hear from the experts dissecting online influence and the marketers employing such maneuvers to intelligently reach their audience on their own turf.
This interactive session is based on a key theme in the book, The Networked Nonprofit (http://www.bethkanter.org/the-ne...), co-authored by Beth Kanter.
We will explore how nonprofits can unleash the power of social good by transitioning from stand-alone institutions to networks energized by abundant resources in their ecosystem. In order to do this, they need to work with free agents, hyper-connected individuals who are passionate about social change, but don't work within institutional walls.
Free agents use social-media channels like Facebook and Twitter and can create social movements in the palms of their hands. They organize supporters, raise attention to important social and political issues, seek donations, and organize supporters to walk, run, shout, protest, and vote, things that were once done mostly by nonprofit organizations. The free agents do it when and how they please, making them distinct from and more powerful than traditional volunteers.
But free agents are smashing headfirst into nonprofit fortresses—organizations with high walls and wide moats that work very hard to keep insiders in and outsiders out. Our session will explore how and why this needs to change. Kanter will bring together a group of highly visible free agents working on important social change causes, including those in Middle East, and representatives from different nonprofits for a lively discussion with the audience.
As the film industry digs deep into the world of comics and graphic novels for source material, how do writers, directors and producers assess the best way to get it to the screen to entice fanpeople and newbies alike? For some of the indie, more idiosyncratic books, how do you retain that uniqueness while broadening access to it? Director/writer/producer Robert Rodriguez (“Frank Miller’s Sin City”) and comics creator/writer Greg Rucka (“Whiteout”) will discuss the challenges and pleasures in going from panel to screen.
He brought us The Web Standards Project, A List Apart, Designing With Web Standards, A Book Apart, and so much more. Now legendary blogger, designer, and creative gadfly Jeffrey Zeldman brings us a SXSW panel. There will be discussion. There will be special guests. Quotable insights will fly faster than your fingers can peck them into Twitterific. Combustible wit will fill the room. And in the end, we'll all be a little wiser than we were.
11th–15th March 2011